History Main / ElectronicMusic

* Electronic Body Music (EBM)

Arguably, pure electronic (pop) music can be traced back to ''{{Music/Kraftwerk}}'' (the band, not the troper of the same name), who made SynthPop music that deliberately exploited its synthetic origins. Kraftwerk was one of, if not ''the'' first act that ''exclusively'' used electronic instruments to generate their output. Electronic music itself dates back much further than the 1970s, though; the theremin was invented ca.1920, the "croix sonore" in 1926, the ondes Martenot in 1928, and all of these were written for by avant-garde classical composers like Nikolai Obukhov, Olivier Messiaen, and Joseph Schillinger. (For an example, see Obukhov's ''The Third and Last Testament'', composed in 1946.) In addition to writing for physical instruments that were powered by electricity, as early as the 1920s some composers were making use of 'found sounds' generated by radios, sometimes making longer works largely using collage and even going as far as manipulating them directly (see Dziga Vertov's ''Enthusiasm! The Dombass Symphony''). This technique, reasonably popular among the Italian and Russian Futurists, strongly foreshadowed the later "musique concrete" movement, kicked off by radio engineer Pierre Schaeffer in the late 1940s with works like "Etude aux chemins de fer" (1948), which was created by manipulating the taped sound of a [[CaptainObvious train]].

* Drum and Bass ([=DnB=] for short, also known as jungle)
* Electronic Body Music (EBM for short)

* IDM (Intelligent Dance Music for short)

** GlobalUnderground

The idea of abandoning physical instruments (and prerecorded sounds) altogether and producing compositions completely synthetically was first proposed in 1949, by Werner Meyer-Eppler in his paper ''Elektronische Klangerzeugung: Elektronische Musik und Synthetische Sprache''. From there, many possibilities of the medium began to be explored and too many developments and trends occurred to be worth describing here. Major figures to watch for in the succeeding years include Edgard Varese (''Deserts'', 1954); Karlheinz Stockhausen (too many works to pick one, but see ''Elektronische Studien I'' and ''II'', 1954); Iannis Xenakis (''Concret PH'', 1958; ''Persepolis'', 1971; created a system to translate drawings of shapes into electronic sounds in the late '70s); and there are probably ''thousands'' of others writing in the same line. Popular music groups like The Beatles and Kraftwerk were directly influenced by Stockhausen, as he continued to be a huge figure in avant-garde music throughout the 1960s and far beyond.

Arguably, pure electronic (pop) music can be traced back to ''{{Music/Kraftwerk}}'' (the band, not the troper of the same name), who made SynthPop music that deliberately exploited its synthetic origins. Kraftwerk was one of, if not ''the'' first act that ''exclusively'' used electronic instruments to generate their output. Electronic music itself dates back much further than the 1970s, though; the theremin was invented ca.1920, the "croix sonore" in 1926, the ondes Martenot in 1928, and all of these were written for by avant-garde classical composers like Nikolai Obukhov, Olivier Messiaen, and Joseph Schillinger. (For an example, see Obukhov's ''The Third and Last Testament'', written in 1946.) In addition to writing for physical instruments that were powered by electricity, as early as the 1920s some composers were making use of 'found sounds' generated by radios, sometimes making longer works largely using collage and even going as far as manipulating them directly (see Dziga Vertov's "Enthusiasm! The Dombass Symphony"). This technique, reasonably popular among the Italian and Russian Futurists, strongly foreshadowed the later "musique concrete" movement, kicked off by radio engineer Pierre Schaeffer in the late 1940s with works like "Etude aux chemins de fer" (1948), which was created by manipulating the taped sound of a [[CaptainObvious train]].

Arguably, pure electronic music can be traced back to ''{{Music/Kraftwerk}}'' (the band, not the troper of the same name), who made SynthPop music that deliberately exploited its synthetic origins. Kraftwerk was one of, if not ''the'' first act that ''exclusively'' used electronic instruments to generate their output.

* Drum and Bass (DnB for short, also known as jungle)

* HouseMusic (no, not that {{House}})

* {{House Music}} (no, not that {{House}})

** {{Hardcore Techno}}

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Unfortunately, ElectronicMusic is often considered a 'lesser' form of music by fans of ThreeChordsAndTheTruth, or a relic that should be entombed in TheEighties.

* Hardcore Techno

Arguably, pure electronic music can be traced back to ''{{Music/Kraftwerk}}'' (the band, not the troper of the same name), who made SynthPop music that deliberately [[{{Synthesizeritis}} exploited its synthetic origins]]. Kraftwerk was one of, if not ''the'' first act that ''exclusively'' used electronic instruments to generate their output.

What you use the equipment to make... well that is a very varied thing. Synthesizers and samplers and drum machines are very flexible in the range of sounds they can make and as such, Electronic music is very varied.

* {{Dubstep}}

* {{Trip-Hop}}

<<|ElectronicMusic|>>

* [[HouseMusic House]] (no, not that {{House}})